ABSTRACT
This chapter speaks to innovative theoretical ways for framing discussions about social justice and democracy and the role of education in reproducing or interrupting current practices. It explains the meaning and historical background of critical race theory (CRT) in legal scholarship and the role of property rights in understanding citizenship. Most people in the United States first learned of CRT when Lani Guinier, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, became a political casualty of the Clinton administration. One of the places to begin understanding CRT is to examine how conceptions of citizenship and race interact. CRT sees the official school curriculum as a culturally specific artifact designed to maintain a White supremacist master script. Although desegregation is not occurring in every school district, its impact on the national level is important enough to be included with the more common school experiences of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and funding. CRT suggests that current instructional strategies presume that African American students are deficient.
